What if there was a way to eat meat without farming and killing billions of animals per year, contributing to the climate crisis and risking high cholesterol levels?
“Cultivated meat is real meat grown directly from animal cells,” Uma Valeti, founder and CEO of Upside Foods, said via email. “These products are not vegan, vegetarian or plant-based — they are real meat, made without the animal.”
“The process of making cultivated meat is similar to brewing beer, but instead of growing yeast or microbes, we grow animal cells,” Valeti added.
In addition to mitigating animal slaughter, cultivated meat could also help slow climate change driven by greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane. The food system is responsible for about a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, most of which are from animal agriculture. The transport needed for agriculture emits both methane and carbon dioxide, and clearing land and forests – including for agriculture – emits carbon dioxide, according to the United Nations.
